Wow.
Not only is war Hell, it's pointless. If it really is The End of the World as We Know It, it's rather sad to think that Humanity in So ra no wo to is hastening its own extinction by getting into such highly organized groups and butchering each other over the scraps.

Chart 1:

The Opposing Forces:
...Are the U.S.A.?
Now I'm even more bummed. I'm feeling like Charlton Heston's character at the end of Planet of the Apes...

Rio's Note:
The note Rio was reading may have also been a 'We regret to inform you' letter that gave her the news regarding her sister's death.

Rio's Identity:
I think by this episode, it's a done deal: unless she has another sibling we don't know about, Rio Kazumiya is at least a princess of Helvetia, if not the Crown Princess. It's all there:

In Episode 3, Kanata asks Rio why she joined the Military. She responds that she did it for the opposite reasons Kanata did: in other words, she learned to play the trumpet in order to join the Military. Likely she did it in anticipation of following a career path similar to Iria's (Communications).

Later, as Rio is freaking about how to treat Kanata's malady, she runs past the phone linked to the Capital, pauses, then decides to leave it as a last resort. ONLY someone with extremely high clout would even consider using that phone for any reason other than The Direst of Emergencies; a normal Sargent worrying about a single Private with a high temperature wouldn't have given it a thought.

The only folks seen in Rio’s Episode 3 flashbacks were an older woman, the Mysterious Trumpeter (Iria), and a blond older man taking care of the older woman. In Episode 7, Rio established that the two most important people to her were her mother and sister.
Implication: there's two choices, and Princess Iria is too young to be Rio’s mother...

In Episode 6 Kureha was surprised how "into it" Rio got when it came to defending the side-project of the 1121...as was mentioned, "Treason" was a very real charge they'd face if the Military caught wind of the competition...even Filicia admit to being surprised about Rio's attitude. Implication: unless Rio had some ties to The Government/Military's Monopoly, benefits of timely cash over late paydays in script should have made it a non-issue.

Rio notes how surprised she was to learn the origins of her Mom's favorite calvados. Filicia speculates that Rio's mother may have had a hand in Rio's orders to the 1121st.
Implication: if Rio's mom wasn't in the Military, she at least had a lot of pull on the Military to be able to influence Rio's orders. I suspect Rio's mom was in the Military herself at one time...she was probably even a past member of the 1121st, if she knew enough about the origins of Seize's calvados to have Rio sent there...

Even Rio’s stamp is different (square double-border as opposed to round/oval single border of the others), as seen in the Episode 6 Fact & Speculation Chart.

In this episode (7), Rio knows about Vingt Point, because she “read the report”. Noel’s question implies is that what happened at the Battle of Vingt Point is not widely known. So why is a simple Sargent privy to reports about battle blunders (at least from Iria’s point of view)?

Filicia asks Rio why she is participating in the Festival this year. Rio answers that she wanted to “protect the country, the people,” like they [her mother and sister] did, but has times of doubt. Rio hopes that if they really can come back to visit the Living World, they can tell her what the point is.
Implication: Such Patriotism (Noblesse oblige ?) wouldn’t be unique to the Monarchy, I know. Then again, if such sentiment as Protect the Country and its People was the norm, why was a Draft (conscription) used to fill the military’s ranks?

So, why isn’t more of a deal made for the country’s elite—they look like the rank-and-file? Just ask the British forces how hard it was to protect Prince William during his (abbreviated) stint in Afghanistan. Nowadays, the danger of long-distance snipers makes just the act of being saluted a hazard to an officer’s health and longevity.
That may another, more practical reason why Filicia downplays rank between members in the 1121st…

Tank Interiors:
My two cents: given the dialogue (except for Olga’s comment about how long they’d gone without a shower) was practically word-for-word that of the Battle Simulation at the beginning of Episode 5, I’d say the similarities regarding interior positions are deliberate.

Battle With Demons:

I noticed that just before the explosions from the Vector Zeros lit everything up, there were columns at regular intervals along the horizon—really, really big ones if the distance is any indicator.
They may be some form of future tech.
They may also be the way “They” got here—whether home was extra-Dimensional (“Demon”?), Outer Space, etc.

It would be helpful to know which came first, “Them” or the state of the oceans.
I will cry if “They” turn out to be the galactic equivalent of the Red Cross/ U.N. Relief, and Humanity panicked before they could explain.

Shuko the Owl is REALLY an Advanced Scout for “Them”! The 1121st is already under Observation and Evaluation by “Them”!! IT’S TRUE!!
DON’T GO TO SLEEP—OR THE OWLS WILL EAT YOIK;,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

OK, this ep has seriously been haunting me all week long. ever since Monday afternoon those flashback images Felicia had kept coming back while I was at work, while I was walking home, While I was eating...etc.... you get the picture. I mean I've seen this theme played out in lots of anime before, and I've seen my fair share of war movies and anit-war movies (from Platoon to Saving Private Ryan), but this ep hit me like a ton of bricks! Just when you thought you'd seen every "war is hell" kind of movie or manga or anime, then BOOM!!! Seriously, I haven't felt this hard hit since I saw that movie "Atonement" last year (Excellent movie btw).

I can't stop thinking about Felicia's fellow squad members who got blown to Kingdom Come early at the beginning. And I dunno, but when they showed Felicia looking for her friend Anna who had the trumpet and they just showed her arm....did it look like her arm got completely blown off and that was the only piece of her there lying on the ground, or was that just me?

Even though you only saw them for a few minutes in this ep (and this is the only ep so far they've even been in), I can honestly feel for them. You know you've got good scripting and good characterization when you can make your audience feel even a little empathy towards your characters with only a couple minutes and a couple of lines. WOW!!!

I think I know why the producers are taking the approach they have on this series so far. By setting the earlier eps with a more laid back, easy going, slice of life feel to them, they are able to disarm the viewer. Then when an ep like this comes along, the audience is not braced for it. So even though there are far more bloodier and graphically violent and gory anime titles out there like Shigurui or Basilisk or Ninja Scroll, when the darker themes hit you in a series like this, they still pack more of an emotional whallop. Does anybody else get that feeling here?

I admit all along in the back of my mind I was secretly hoping there would be this kind of "war is hell" kind of feeling to it towards the end of the series and that it was building up to it (and I kinda suspected it would at least have a little more of that theme as the show progressed because of those first few minutes of episode 1 when we first meet Kanata). Even so, the way this theme finally did show up really did a number on me. Wow! I'm starting to see the producers of this show as geniuses and true artists and true storytellers in every sense of the word for the way they pulled this off.

BTW - I was rewatching ep 5 yesterday. the one where in the beginning it showed them doing battle simulations in the tank right b4 Claus showed up. The first time I saw that I remember thinking "awww they look so cute playing war like that". But after seeing ep 7, I can't help but find that scene a little unnerving or even discomforting, knowing they weren't really "playing".

And then I felt even more sorry for Felicia knowing what she had to go through when she was their age just because she was born a few years earlier. She says she doesn't want them to have to go through what she did, but man it still seems so unfair to her that she got robbed of her own childhood. I think this show does a pretty good job of showing to the audience just what that means.

Please keep in mind that there is a chance that the crew of the tanks her former team were blowing up could have had lovable teenage girls in them too. Just shows that war is never pretty no matter which side you are on.

True, true. I am one of the mindset that thinks the opposing side of the war could have been made up of humans as well, unlike some who have suggested it was a war against machines or aliens. Guess we'll have to wait and see if more clues are dropped later in the series.

And the reason I single out sympathy for Felicia is because out of this cast she represents the ones of her generation who did have her childhood robbed. I guess I should clarify I didn't wish for her and her squad to be wildly successful at their job, but that they didn't have to be doing that job in the first place. Like they say, war is Hell. I just think this show has found a fresh, direct way of emphasizing that point to an audience who more than likely have seen or heard such statements and themes so many times in this and other forms of media that some like me, were slowly starting to get desensitized to it.